


The Magic of Intimacy, by Anonymous

by The_RyRy



Category: Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_RyRy/pseuds/The_RyRy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a dare from Sigrun, Anders wrote the book on sex magic. What he didn't expect was that the book would become so popular, or that it would follow him around in his adventures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This work started as a joke about Merrill looking for sex magic books in Anders's clinic. What if Anders was the one who wrote the book? Here are a few short vignettes from times that Anders encountered his own book during his adventures.

"Are you done with your errand?" Sigrun asked, patting the chair next to her invitingly as Anders walked into the Gnawed Noble Tavern. 

Anders sat and unapologetically took a drink from Sigrun's ale. "I can't believe you talked me into this," he said. 

"It's about time you made a name for yourself," she replied, taking her ale back and signaling to the bartender to bring a mug for Anders. "And that knowledge needs to get out there." 

"I did it anonymously," he said. 

"You're already pretty anonymous," she informed him. "What's your name anyway?" Sigrun smiled up at the bartender as he dropped off a mug for Anders and a refill for Sigrun.

"It's unpronounceable."

"A pretty lie." 

Anders smiled at her. "To go with my pretty face." 

"The perfect vehicle for sex magic," she added, smiling as she lifted her mug for a toast. 

Anders touched his mug to hers and took another long drink. "The next time we come back we'll have to stop by the bookstore to see if they've printed it."

"I'll be the first one to order a copy," Sigrun replied. “I’ll put it in the library, right where Nathaniel will find it and pretend he’s not reading it.”

Anders smiled at her and the promise of her prank, absolutely certain that his silly book would never see the light of day.


	2. 1

Anders walked into Kinloch Hold with Alistair, Sigrun, and Nathaniel behind him, hating to walk these halls and smell this air again even if he did it as a free (well, free-er) mage.

"Wardens," said Gregoir.

"Templar," Anders replied, trying for his most neutral tone and failing.

"Thank you for coming to talk to the mages," Gregoir replied. "I know it must not be pleasant for you, but there have been some interesting discoveries from the Circle in Orlais concerning the talking darkspawn."

"I hope you don't mind that I brought my friends," Anders said, gesturing behind him.

"Knight-Commander," said Alistair, tilting his head.

"Alistair," said Gregoir in greeting. "So nice to see you again. I am happy you found a place with the Wardens."

"And not on the throne, he means," said Sigrun, elbowing Alistair fondly. Alistair laughed, and Nathaniel cleared his throat.

Anders shifted nervously. "Can we, er, get on with this?"

"Of course," Gregoir replied, gesturing to the door that led to Anders's former prison. "Right this way."

"I know which way," Anders reminded him.

As they walked through the halls, they passed the apprentice quarters. Anders looked at the faces that peered out at them -- young kids, most of them, but some older men and women. His heart sank and his pace slowed, Gregoir walking far ahead in his clanking plate mail.

"They see you," Nathaniel said in a low voice that only the Wardens could hear.

"They recognize me," Anders replied, trying not to frown.

"They see a way out," Nathaniel added. "You might be their beacon of hope."

"Yes, come join the Grey Wardens," Anders said in a low voice. "Take the taint into your body, possibly die, have nightmares for the rest--"

"Hush," Alistair said, poking Anders in the upper arm. "Those are secrets for a reason."

"Wait, Anders," Sigrun said, tugging on his robe from the side. "Look, at that girl in the corner."

Anders paused and looked into a room where several apprentices were gathered around a sheet of parchment -- homework, no doubt, and they were working on it together. One girl sat off to the side, curled up on a bed in the corner, reading a book.

Anders recognized the binding. It was from the press in Denerim. "What's that say?" he asked Sigrun.

Sigrun looked up at him excitedly "It says, 'The Magic of Intimacy'. I think that's your book!"

"You're kidding," Anders said. "They changed the title!"

"You wrote a book?" Nathaniel said from behind them.

Anders felt a blush coming to his cheeks. "Yes," he replied. "You're not the target audience,” he added, although he wanted to mention that Nathaniel _had_ been the target of some of the skills described in the book.

The sound of plate mail indicated Gregoir's arrival beside them. "Something amiss, Wardens?" he asked.

"Just old memories," Anders replied. "And pity."

Gregoir frowned. "Maybe this was a mistake," he said.

"No, no," Alistair chimed in. "Not a mistake. This is important work we're doing, we just got caught up in the moment." He put his hand reassuringly on Anders's shoulder, and Anders knew what that gesture meant. _It's hard, I know, but we won't let anything happen to you._

"Yes," Anders said, faking a smile the way he always had when he was a prisoner here. "Let's continue."

 


	3. 2

Anders was so hungry. Being a Grey Warden had its drawbacks, but until he was an apostate he hadn't felt the keen sense of hunger gnawing at his gut. They fed everyone well in Vigil's Keep, and some nights when Anders lay on his cot in his clinic feeling his stomach turn itself inside out with hunger, the taint searing in his veins with nothing to sate it, he considered running back and begging Nathaniel and Alistair for forgiveness.

Instead, he wandered to Lowtown and bought the cheapest food he could find. He felt bad spending money from the clinic on food for himself rather than supplies for his patients, but he couldn't survive without food. He couldn't regain the mana he spent on their wounds without food. 

Justice did not approve.

Anders didn't get a chance to frequent the shops in Lowtown as much as he would have liked. There was something about having the clinic and his cause and the templars who prowled the area that made him uncomfortable. But sometimes, he just couldn't stand the smell of Darktown any longer and found himself in the city proper.

He couldn't deny that being in Lowtown made him miss Amaranthine, for all its smell of hay and pigs and mud. However, at least there was food here that did not require you to catch it yourself or fight off a horde of starving refugees. 

Anders was eating hard bread and something that purported to be sausage but which had probably been made from the innards of rats when he saw a familiar book at the stand that usually carried trinkets and jewelry. He could not help but to go take a look. 

And, indeed, it was his book -- now titled "The Magic of Intimacy, by Anonymous, with a new Forward by Varric Tethras". Who was Varric Tethras and why did he write a forward to Anders's book?

"Hands off," said the shopkeeper when Anders reached to open the book to look at the new forward. 

"This is _my_ book," Anders insisted before he could stop himself. He did not have the protection of the Grey Wardens here, and there might be templars nearby. 

"Someone stole it from you, did they?" the man across the table said, and Anders was relieved. "Well too bad for you. Keep a tighter hand on your possessions, Anders." 

Anders was used to his heritage being his name by now, and that he was recognized as such was not surprising. In this city of Fereldan refugees, at least he was not recognized as one of them and treated as such, although he felt great sympathy for them. 

"How much for it?" he asked, knowing that whatever the price was he couldn't justify it. 

"Thirty silvers."

Anders shook his head. That was definitely too much, although just a few months ago it would have seemed a paltry sum compared to the money he spent on robes and boots and staves in the Wardens. 

"Good day," he said as he walked away, hurrying to finish the food that would sustain him before another night in the clinic.


	4. 3

“Here kitten, you should read this,” Isabela said to Merrill between hands of Wicked Grace, and Anders nearly choked at what she had in her hands. 

“With a forward by Varric Tethras?” Merrill said, looking inside the front page. “Varric, I had no idea you had such interest in magic.”

Varric shrugged as he shuffled the cards. “It reads well,” he said. “All kinds of ideas, and if you actually read my forward, you’d know I credit this book for most of my most creative romantic scenes in _The Wolf and the Apostate_ \--”

Fenris glowered and Anders had to scoff at him. 

“Let me see that book,” Anders said, reaching his hand toward Merrill. She scowled at him, and he smiled as best as he could. “I promise I’ll give it back and you can spend all the time you like with it.”

Reluctantly, Merrill handed it over, and Anders gingerly held the relic of his past in his hands. His book, written with Sigrun’s encouragement, which had now spread all over Thedas by most accounts. He turned the pages delicately, recognizing his words and sentences, his tone from a time so long ago when he was another man entirely. 

He looked up and Isabela was winking at him. “I daresay Anders knows everything in that book,” she said wryly. “I know he does that lightning spell _quite_ well.”

“Oh _really_ ,” Varric said, pausing as he dealt the cards.

“Don’t take her word for it,” Anders said, trying to deflect. “Might have to find out for yourself.” 

As Varric laughed, Anders heard Bethany ask, “Are those things they teach in Circles, Anders?”

Anders laughed. “Hardly _taught_ , at least not officially,” he said. “Regardless, we all learned them.” He paged through the book and his heart ached for Sigrun, for Nathaniel, for Alistair, and his home and his friends that he had left--

Without knowing what he was doing, Justice snapped the book shut and handed it back to Merrill. 

Then he noticed that Bethany was looking at him as she said, “Can I borrow that book when you’re done?”


	5. 4

“It’s a miracle that I managed to have anything with me at all,” Bethany said, leaning down to pick up the copy of _The Magic of Intimacy_ that the genlock had tripped over. 

Nathaniel pulled an arrow out of the genlock’s head. “It was good thinking to slow them down like that,” he said. “You can’t let them grab you, _ever_.”

“Sigrun’s told me what awaits women in the Deep Roads,” she replied. “That’s why I was willing to sacrifice this bag, even with this book in it.”

Nathaniel nodded back over his shoulder. “You should talk to your sister,” he said. 

Bethany smiled at him. “You should talk to Anders,” she replied. 

“Hey, I’m right here,” Anders interjected, uncorking a poultice for a nasty cut on Bethany’s arm. “Don’t talk about me as if I’m not present.”

“Is that the book?!” Merrill called from behind them. She walked up to Bethany and patted her on the arm that Anders wasn’t attending to. “Bethany, you brought my book all the way here? You didn’t have to give it back, you know!” 

“ _Your_ book?” Nathaniel said, and he looked up at Anders. 

“Well, I didn’t mean I _wrote_ it, no! It was given to me by a friend, so I gave it to a friend,” Merrill protested, even as Bethany laughed gently at her. 

“I never thought it would be so useful,” she said, gesturing to the dead genlock sprawled on the floor. 

“You know we have a copy of that book at the Vigil, right?” Nathaniel said. 

Anders raised his eyebrow. “Finally found it, did you?” 

Nathaniel shrugged. “Maybe I always knew it was there.”

“Don’t you have better things to do than read about sex magic?” Anders replied.

“Oh, is that what it’s about?” Nathaniel raised his eyebrow at Bethany, who laughed and clutched the book to her chest.


	6. 5

Anders heard Bethany close the door as she left the Warden-Commander’s office, leaving him alone to beg for forgiveness and protection. 

“So,” Alistair said, “you’re back.”

Anders stared. “That’s it?” 

Nathaniel, sitting off to the side, shrugged. “That was a bit of a long leave of absence. I’m glad we found you to bring you back.”

Anders blinked, dumbfounded. “But, I…” He couldn’t say the words. “You’re not going to…?”

“To what?” Alistair said. “Bring back our valuable healer comrade when we have a huge problem on our hands that doesn’t have anything to do with Kirkwall?”

“A what?” Anders said. “There’s a problem bigger than the systematic oppression--”

“Much bigger,” Nathaniel said. “And we need all the help we can get.”

“I don’t understand,” Anders replied, but then he spotted a familiar looking book on the shelf behind Alistair. He squinted and read the spine as Alistair started to say something that began with _You’ll understand in due time, but_. 

He was instantly distracted, and didn’t realize that he was interrupting Alistair when he said, “Wait, is that my book?”

The corner of Alistair’s mouth turned up in a smile. “ _Your_ book? I thought it was written by Anonymous.”

Anders turned and looked at Nathaniel for help. Nathaniel simply smiled. “Maybe,” he said, “we also missed having you around.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this silly little thing!


End file.
